


Anywhere, Any When (Initium Novum)

by sanctuary_for_all



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: And Then Season 3 Happened, F/M, Families of Choice, Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, I Didn't Even LIKE Deacon, I Never Ever Meant For This To Happen, Mostly I just need these two idiots to have a happy ending, Why Do I Watch This Show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 16:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14981477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: “Deacon.” The word echoed as Jennifer felt more of herself slip away, the knife finally dissolving out of her grip. But really, it had only ever been a way to hold onto the man who once owned it. “Put me where he is.”An end and a beginning. (Post a slightly altered version of the series finale)***NOW WITH TWO ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS******AND NOW A THIRD ADDITIONAL CHAPTER***(Seriously - this thing is probably just going to keep growing)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw 4X8, and realized that the Jennifer who had lived through that episode would not have a SINGLE shred of hesitation about where in the timeline she wanted to end up. So I tweaked the fic accordingly, and included the knife.

Victory, in the end, meant all their hard work getting wiped away like it never happened. Olivia was meant to live a long, long, messed-up life, going back at the end to set up all the dominos she’d so happily knock over later, and when she got wiped from the timeline everything her future self arranged suddenly disappeared. That just happened to be pretty much everything, and when she was gone the timeline heaved with the sudden absence of all her scheming. There’s no loop at all if no one ever starts it, and Jennifer could feel millions of different lifetimes being unmade and remade as Time surged forward along the path it had wanted to take all along.

Jennifer closed her eyes, not looking forward to it. Hopping through time trying to save the world was a much better life than being Leland Goines' daughter, since he’d no doubt still be a bastard even without Olivia the supervillain behind the scenes. At least maybe she’d avoid almost getting drowned in the bathtub by her mother this time, though given the non-Primary crazy in the family gene pool even that was still probably a long shot.

Worse, it would be years before she had the chance to see Deacon again, if she even managed to find him at all. Her fingers curled around the handle of his knife, holding it tight against her chest. She'd hold onto it as long as she could, but eventually even that would....

“Hey.”

Jennifer’s eyes flew open at the sound of her own voice. The other her – the cooler one, with the much better fashion sense and fighting skills – was standing in front of her wearing black leather and a smirk. “You don’t have long,” Jennifer muttered, already feeling herself start to dissolve.

“How long we take depends on you, crazy girl.” The other her crouched down enough to look Jennifer in the eye, expression turning serious. “Where do you want to go?”

Jennifer’s brow lowered, confused. Her thoughts were already starting to scatter, pieces of her being pulled back into the new timeline, but even that wasn’t as bad as a head full of screaming pieces of the past and future used to be. “Where we don’t need roads?”

The other her huffed out what might have been a laugh. “Should have known that’s what would happen.” She poked her nose, which Jennifer _definitely_ knew she shouldn’t have been able to feel. “You and Otter Eyes saved Time and managed to survive the experience, which means you both get a retirement package. For him, he gets to still exist and be in the same time as Cassie. For you, that means your old spot in the timeline will get smoothed over and we'll drop you back in wherever you want. But you have to decide before the big reboot wraps up, or you’ll get stuck back where you started."

_Where do you want to go? Anywhere but here. Any when. Just tell me._

The memory of his voice was sharper and clearer than anything else in the world. “Deacon.” The word echoed as she felt more of herself slip away, the knife finally dissolving out of her grip. But really, it had only ever been a way to hold onto the man who once owned it. “Put me where he is.”

She assumed 2040-whatever wouldn't be a post-apocalyptic wasteland anymore, but even if it was it didn't really matter. It would have Deacon in it, hopefully with a happier life than the one he'd had in this timeline. He wouldn't remember her, but he'd have the same good heart he'd always tried so hard to pretend he didn't have. Those eyes that had always, _always_ seen her, even when no one else seemed to. She'd loved Cassie and Cole like the family she'd never really had, but Deacon had been her light in the darkness. Her rock in the middle of the crashing ocean that had always threatened to pull her under.

In this new timeline, she'd be no different than anyone else to him. But he'd be there, and that would be enough.

The other her’s smirk was almost a smile. “I thought you’d say that.”

That was the last thing she saw before everything dissolved into white.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small spoilers for 4X5 and 4X6.

She woke up in New York, in a 2043 that was not _nearly_ as futuristically cool as movies had led her to believe it would be. Of course, it _also_ wasn’t a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and hopefully had Deacon in it somewhere. She'd take this over the movie version any day.

Still, there were a few things she had to do first. It was slightly harder being homeless, penniless and identityless in 2043 New York than it had been in WWI France – no one carried cash anymore, which made it much harder to crash into them and “borrow” their wallets – but apparently the interest in weird performance art was eternal. After a few lean weeks, she had a one-woman show in a tiny little disaster of a theater that one blog later called a “raw distillation of ancient pop culture infused with the chaotic energy of modern society.” She didn’t care what the reviews said – of course she did – but it made just enough money that she was already talking to a friend of a friend of the guy at the pho place down the street who could get people ident chips and full identities for the right amount of money.

(It broke her heart a little that Deacon's knife hadn't re-appeared with her. She comforted herself with the thought that he wouldn't remember giving it to her in the first place, but it would have been nice to hold those nights when sleep wasn't going to happen). 

During the day, and after the show was done each night, she went looking for Deacon. She remembered him saying he was from New York – they’d been talking about pizza – and that he wanted to open a bar with his brother after time reset itself. She had no idea if he’d stayed, no idea if he would still have the same desire when he could no longer remember having it, but since even Internet phone directories didn’t really seem to be a thing in the future it was the only place she had to start.

So she went to all the bars the search engine spit out, one by one. At the first couple she made the mistake of asking who the owner was, getting met each time with either blank looks or instant suspicion, so after that she just started looking for his face. It was hardly the most foolproof plan in the world, but if Deacon was at _all_ like he’d been in the other timeline he wouldn’t be one of those silent partner types. He’d want to be there, so deeply ingrained in the day-to-day running of the bar that it couldn’t happen without him.

Jennifer never asked anyone if they knew a Theodore Deacon. It would have made things easier, but it also might have gotten back to Deacon that someone was asking around about him. It would be weird that a stranger was trying to find him, and for all she knew it might make him suspicious enough that he’d make sure to stay hidden. Also, there was a chance she'd find out he was happily married with a bunch of kids, and though she'd be happy for him - she _would_ \- she wasn't really prepared to find that out just yet. 

(She wasn’t dumb enough to imagine he’d remember her, the way Cassie had remembered Cole during the time wipe. She was pretty sure the reset had wiped the splinter juice out of all their systems – she’d snuck into a lab and given herself a blood test, early on – and Deacon had actually grown with this timeline instead of getting shoved into it sideways. If anything lingered in his memory, even buried deep, it would have to be pretty damn important.)

A little over six months after she started looking – hey, there were a lot of bars in New York – she walked into a busy neighborhood bar called Gus’s. There was laughter from over by the anti-grav pool table – the good kind, not the kind where a fight was about to break out – and the hum of conversation mostly centered around things like sports and how much people hated their bosses.

The guy behind the bar made her stop short for a second. He _wasn’t_ Deacon, but there were echoes of him in the line of his jaw and the shape of his eyes. The guy was also a good five or six years younger than Deacon was supposed to be, and it hit her suddenly that this might be the little brother he’d lost. The one he’d wanted to run the bar with.

Immediately she turned, scanning the crowd with far more intensity than she had before. Even as she did, she told herself that he and his brother might switch off days and he might not be here at all. Or he might be in the back, that mystical area that bar owners were always emerging out of in movies….

As if she’d called him, a door suddenly swung open and there he was. He wasn’t smiling, not really – she’d seen his genuine smile, and it was a killer – and there was still something guarded about the set of his shoulders. But he looked good, secure in his place in the universe, and when he leaned over the bar to say something to his brother she got a brief, wonderful flash of that smile she remembered.

If this was a movie, the background music would have cued up and everything else would have gone into slow motion. She couldn’t stop staring at him, heart so full of emotion it threatened to burst out of her chest on little cartoon wings. She imagined walking over there and telling him that she liked the place, and even though he wouldn’t really remember her there’d be this spark of something in his eyes. Like he’d seen her somewhere before but wasn’t sure where, and then he’d offer to buy her a—

Suddenly, Deacon turned just enough to catch her gaze. Their eyes locked, and Jennifer lost her breath as surprise flared in Deacon’s eyes. Then his brow lowered, like he was trying to remember where he knew her from. Like some part of him, down deep, knew who she was.

Or like he was trying to figure out why a complete stranger was staring at him and grinning like an idiot.

The thought sliced through her happiness haze like a knife, and she turned around and bolted out of the bar like Olivia’s goons were chasing her. Only when she burst out into the relative safety of the darkness outside did she let herself stop, kicking the outside wall, cursing herself in the rudest French she knew, and trying _very_ hard not to burst into tears. That had been so _stupid_ , enough that she’d probably ruined her chances of ever being able to approach him like a normal human being later. Someone who might—

“You’re not even going to stay for a drink?”

She whirled around at the sound of Deacon’s voice, as deep and warm as she sometimes still heard it in her dreams. He’d followed her out of the bar, and when their eyes met again something oddly fragile flashed across his expression. Then it was gone, replaced by the rough kindness he did so well. “That’s kind of what bars are for, you know – drinking. If you don’t at least try it, you’re missing the full effect.”

Jennifer hoped her pounding heart wasn’t actually loud enough that he could hear it all the way over there. She couldn't help but notice the fact that his fingers were completely ring-free, even though that wasn't really _relevant_ right now, brain. “Sorry. I don’t….” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed. “The credit on my ident chip isn’t working.” She touched the spot on her wrist where the chip would be if she had one. “Gonna get it looked at tomorrow.”

Something about the expression on his face made it clear he knew she was full of shit, but he seemed amused by that fact rather than suspicious. “If that’s the case, what you’re supposed to do then is look at me with those big eyes and ask if I’ll buy one for you.” He smiled a little. “I own half the place, and the guy behind the bar is my brother. So I’m pretty sure I can talk him into helping us out.”

This was enough like that fantasy she’d been spinning that she did a slow turn to scan the area for the thing that didn’t fit, the thing that would wake her up out of the hallucination. But there was nothing that didn’t make sense in context, and when she pinched her arm hard there was no dramatic wake-up scene.

As far as her messed-up brain could tell her, this was _real_.

His expression gentled. “Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you.” That oddly fragile look returned for a second, and he took a step back. “If you want me to back off, I will.”

She stepped forward before she’d realized she’d done it, hands half lifting to reach before she stopped them. “Why’d you name it Gus’s?” she asked abruptly, mostly so she wouldn’t say something like “Please don’t go” or “I missed you so much.”

He looked up at the neon sign like he was wrestling with something, and after a second she realized he looked ever so slightly embarrassed. “Have you ever seen this really old movie called ‘Spaceballs?’” he asked finally.

She blinked at him, confused, then memory connected. “Gus’s Galaxy Grill!”

Deacon’s lips curved upward again. “Yeah. No dancing chest bursters here, though.” He cleared his throat. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? Matt and I have most of the regulars convinced that Gus was an uncle of ours who owned a bar we used to run around in when we were kids.”

Jennifer smiled, not able to help it. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

He blinked, just looking at her, then seemed to come back into the moment. “Good.” He held out a hand, wiggling his fingers a little in invitation. “Now, are we going to hang out here all night, or are you going to come inside with me?” A mischievous spark lit his eyes. “I don’t bite, I promise.”

She snorted at the set-up for the old joke. “Unless I ask you to?”

His grin widened, the killer one she remembered so well, and then he stopped her heart by giving her their wink. The wildly exaggerated one, complete with the mouth click, that she’d given him to tell him she wasn’t really broken. The one she’d never once seen him use until he’d given it back to her to say he wasn’t really working for Olivia. The one that had so quickly become a silent way of saying they were in on it together, no matter what was going on.

Feeling like there was a fist wrapped around her heart, she placed her hand in his. “I should probably warn you, I definitely still qualify as crazy according to most definitions of the word.”

His smile didn’t lessen in the slightest as he tightened his hand around hers, leading her back inside. “Works for me.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, I'm posting this particular vignette here solely for my own convenience and amusement. It was technically written after the next chapter, but I shifted things around so it fits into the correct spot in the timeline.

No one had ever accused Theodore Deacon of being a good guy.

...Okay, so maybe Matt did sometimes, but the fact that their asshole father had been the other major male presence in his life had probably damaged his sense of scale. Deacon had run with a pretty serious street gang when he was younger, actually _led_ the gang for a little while before he'd walked out on all of them, and even did a stretch in prison after the mess he'd made when they forced a reunion on him. He was a _safe_ bad guy, someone you didn't have to worry about unless you were trying to start some shit, but he was still a bad guy. Most of the time, he liked that just fine.

Then he met Jennifer. Or found her, really. Even though it didn't make the slightest damn bit of sense, the first sight of her had been like a puzzle piece clicking into place. Like the hole he'd felt inside him his whole life was just the spot she hadn't filled yet, rather than a massive character flaw like he'd always assumed.

She made him want to be _good_ , in a fierce, deeply stupid way that only Matt had ever come close to inspiring. Jennifer was like one of those exotic birds he'd only ever seen in pictures, full of light and color, and no matter how smart she was she was still too damn vulnerable. She needed someone to watch her back, someone who wouldn't be too rough and turn into just one more person who hurt her.

So, whenever she hung out at the bar until the wild hours of the morning, he convinced her to spend the night in his upstairs apartment rather than risk public transit. When that happened, he took the couch and slept lightly enough to keep an ear out. Jennifer had nightmares sometimes – if her dad wasn't already dead, Deacon would be really damn tempted to do the job himself – and he wanted to be awake enough to help yank her out of it.

He knew all about nightmares.

Tonight, though, it wouldn't have mattered how deeply he'd been asleep. He shot awake when Jennifer screamed his name, sounding like the word had been ripped out of her. He was up and moving before he'd even fully processed what had happened, hurrying into the bedroom to find Jennifer still caught in the nightmare. He caught her hand in his, holding on as if that would be enough to pull her out of whatever she was seeing. "Jennifer." He dropped to his knees beside the bed, careful not to touch anything but her hand in case it became part of the nightmare. "Wake up. Nothing you're seeing is real." He squeezed her hand. "Please."

Her eyes flew open with a gasp, and for a heartbeat they just stared at each other in the darkness. Then Jennifer launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him like he was the only thing keeping her from falling off the side of a cliff.

Deacon wrapped his own arms around her, holding on just as tight. She was still shaking a little, his t-shirt already wet with her tears. “I _really_ wish I could kill your dad,” he breathed, hating how much she was hurting.

She shook her head without pulling away from him at all. “I watched you die,” she whispered, voice breaking. There was a sudden chill at the back of Deacon’s neck, the suggestion of something that felt like the edge of a blade, but it vanished when she continued speaking. “Over and over again. I tried to stop it, but it felt like I’d been _frozen_.”

His chest constricted painfully, incredibly touched even though he probably shouldn’t have been. “I’m right here.” His voice was rough as he stroked a soothing hand over her hair. “It was just a nightmare. It didn’t really happen.”

Jennifer made a pained noise at that, holding on even more tightly. “You have to be _careful_ ,” she whispered, fierce and desperate all at once. “I can’t lose you again.”

It should have sounded like nonsense, the words not fitting anything in the relationship they’d had so far. But they _felt_ true, an echo of the same spike of panic that had hit when she’d finally gone home that first night. Like she might vanish if he lost sight of her, and he’d have to spend the rest of his life trying to find her all over again.

But there was no way in hell _he_ was going anywhere. Not when she was here.

Deacon closed his eyes. “You’ve got me for the next 20 or 30 years at the very least.” He swallowed. “I’ll swing for longer if I can.”

She went so still it felt like she’d stopped breathing, pulling back just far enough to stare at him with huge eyes. Deacon let her look, knowing exactly what he’d just offered and scared to death she wouldn’t want it. Every instinct he had screamed at him to take it back, to protect himself, but he didn’t move. It was in her hands, now.

Just like his heart.

Suddenly, she moved away from him, and Deacon closed his eyes as he tried to breathe past the pain in his chest. But she didn’t let go like he thought she would, and after a second he realized she was trying to pull him upward onto the bed with her. He opened his eyes, finally moving like he was supposed to, and she guided him close enough that she could take his face in her hands. Even in the darkness, he could see her eyes were shining. “Thirty years isn’t _nearly_ as much time as I want with you,” she whispered, the words searing their way down to the depths of his soul. “But I’ll take it as a start.”

If Deacon had been a poet, he thought he might have a chance of capturing everything he was feeling. But he was just him, so he closed the last little bit of distance between them and kissed her with everything inside him.

Jennifer kissed him back just as hard, holding on like she planned on never letting go.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the stage idea to the genius [the-ivory-and-ebony-canaries.](http://the-ivory-and-ebony-canaries.tumblr.com/post/175397304844/dude-all-i-want-for-the-series-finale-of-this-god)

_Six perfectly sequential, vision-free, non time-loopy years later…._

Gun held close to her chest, Jennifer pressed her back against the wall and considered how much trouble she was in. She was rapidly running out of places to hide, and the person hunting her was so much better at this game than she was. She could try to make a last stand, but even now she knew how hopeless it would be. And all this time, she could feel him getting closer, closer….

“Hi, honey.” Deacon was suddenly next to her, voice a warm rumble in her ear that sent a happy little shiver through her whole body. “Mind if I take you hostage?”

Jennifer grinned, handing him the toy ray gun she was holding. “It’ll be tough, but I think I can forgive you for it.”

“You’re too kind.” Tossing the toy gun off into the distance, he stroked his fingers lightly but distractingly along the exposed skin below her throat before wrapping an arm around her upper chest. “Though technically, you could call it payback. You keep stealing my shirts.”

Enjoying another happy little shiver, she leaned back against him. She loved that they got to work together, him at the bar downstairs and her on the small stage he and his brother Matt had built for her, but she didn't get to touch him _nearly_ often enough. “What can I say? You have good shirts.” More importantly, they smelled like him, which is why she sometimes wore them even onstage. “Besides, I’ve been doing it for years. You’d miss it if I stopped.”

He pressed a kiss against the top of her head. “I really would.”

Suddenly, there was a tiny, exasperated voice from around the corner. “Mommy! Daddy! You have _got_ to stop flirting in the middle of battles!”

Jennifer couldn't have stopped her expression from softening if she'd wanted to. She'd panicked when she first found out she was pregnant, because she knew from personal experience that crazy mom plus small defenseless child sometimes ended up in near-drownings and she’d kill herself before she ever harmed a kid. Deacon had also panicked, though he hadn’t admitted it to her at first, because his father had been an abusive bastard and he’d been terrified the same thing lurked deep inside him.

But, with the help of Matt and his family, they’d finally managed to convince each other there was one thing they would absolutely do that their parents hadn’t – love the shit out of their child. Once you had that down, as it turned out, everything else usually worked itself

Even when you got distracted from the epic battle you were supposed to be fighting. “I’m sorry, baby, I can’t help it!" Jennifer called out to her daughter. “I keep getting distracted by your father’s wiles!”

“Hey, it’s your wiles that are the problem, here," Deacon murmured, voice low and amused. “I’m just a perfectly innocent bystander.” 

Joy Deacon, who even at four years old already had a masterful "You've got to be shitting me" face, made a deeply long-suffering noise. “Daaaaddy, _please_ stop using your wiles on Mommy and come tell me you’ve taken her hostage.”

She could feel Deacon's chuckle through her whole back. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he called out, then brushed her lips against her hair again. “You ready?”

Jennifer curled both her hands around the arm across her upper chest, the scattering of tiny gems across her wedding band sparkling in the light. “Always.”

Together, they hurried out into view. “Hah hah! I have your partner, Captain Superhero!” Deacon announced in his best movie villain voice. “What are you going to do now?”

Jennifer stretched out her hand toward Joy as melodramatically as she could toward her daughter, a little girl with her mother's round face and her father's dark hair. "Here's looking at you, kid." 

Joy stretched her hand back toward Jennifer with her own melodramatic look, then pointed her toy ray gun at her dad with a fierce expression. “You’ll never get away with this, Dr. Demento!”

Deacon did his crazy laugh. “Oh, really? What are you going to do to stop me?”

That was their cue. Joy met Jennifer's eyes as the two of them flashed matching grins at each other. Then Joy threw her toy ray gun, charging forward and shouting “Attack Plan Alpha!”

Jennifer could feel Deacon already bracing himself to be crashed into as she scooped joy up, then turned around so they could both jump on him. He took both their weight easily, but staggered back a little for show as he grabbed onto them both. He went to one knee, then down on his back, moaning and groaning the whole time.

When everyone was safely on the ground, he flung his arms out dramatically. “You defeated me. I’m at your mercy.”

Both of them happily sprawled across his chest, Joy leaned down to kiss his cheek. “Don’t worry. We’ll be gentle.” Then she looked over at Jennifer. “What should we do with him, Mommy?”

Jennifer pretended to think about it. “Either help us fight Nazis or make us lunch waffles,” she said finally. “I can’t decide.”

Joy’s eyes lit. Fighting Nazis was her favorite game in the entire world, but it was very hard to say no to Deacon’s lunch waffles. “What about both?” She looked back down at Deacon. “Is that okay, Daddy?”

Now it was his turn to pretend to think about it, laying a hand on both their backs. “I do love lunch waffles and hate Nazis,” he said finally. “I think I can agree to that.”

Joy grinned. “Good.” She pressed another kiss against Deacon’s cheek. “Waffles first, then Nazis.”

Watching them, Jennifer's throat tightened. She still saw Deacon die in her nightmares sometimes, and there were others where they both disappeared as a shifting timeline took them away from her. They were the last little whispers of Time, reminders to never take the life she had now for granted.

Not that she'd ever be dumb enough to do that anyway. No possible version of time or space, no movie that had ever been made or would ever be made in any timeline, could even come _close_ to the life she had now.

She'd go through all of it again, a thousand times over, if it meant she could get back here.

The feel of her daughter’s lips against her cheek brought Jennifer back into the moment. “Don’t be sad, Mommy,” Joy said. “We’ve got you.”

“She’s right,” Deacon said softly, voice serious as he smoothed his hand over the back of her hair. She’d told him the parts of her past that didn’t sound like they came from a science fiction movie, and he’d helped her through every panic attack, confused moment, and bout of depression like a damn superhero. “We do.”

“I know.” Eyes stinging, she gave them both a quick kiss. “And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

“That’s good, because you’re stuck with us.” Deacon said, arms tightening around them both as he sat up. Then he flashed his crazy grin, getting to his feet without letting go of them. Given their respective heights, it left several inches between Jenniffer and the ground. “Literally.”

Jennifer laughed, clinging to his shoulder. “You’re going to regret this after a few steps.”

“I don’t think so.” He bounced her a little to adjust his grip. “But we can bet on it if you want.”

Joy, secure in his other arm, poked at his shoulder. “Flirt later,” she said happily. “I want to see if you can carry us both all the way to the kitchen.”

Spoiler alert – he could.  


	5. Chapter 5

_Several more perfectly sequential, vision-free, non time-loopy years later…._

Old Jennifer, as it turned out, hadn't been all that old.

She hadn't even turned 60 yet when Jennifer first met her, an age that had seemed ancient at the time but felt positively spry now that she was living it. Also, what had seemed like Old Jennifer's wisdom had probably been more like well-honed common sense and an increased ability to cheat, but since the same tricks seemed to work just as well for Jennifer now she wasn't about to complain.

Her shtick was slightly different, of course. "Aging artsy type" played a lot better in New York than "mystical old woman in the woods," and on a day-to-day level had mostly just meant making her skirts longer and adding even more layers to deal with those moments when she felt randomly cold for no reason. She still made cryptic pronouncements, but it was in her best theatrical voice and with a little flourish of her hand like she'd forgotten she wasn't on stage somewhere.

It was the other differences between them, however, that were far, _far_ more important.

"Grandma!" A little boy ran up to her, hair sticking up in front the same way his grandpa's did. A slightly older boy followed him, a neighbor kid who had taken to following Theo around like a shadow every time he was here. "You've got to do the thing for Lucas! He doesn't believe you're a real witch!"

Jenniffer sitting on the porch of the little house they’d bought when Deacon and Matt had finally turned over the running of the bar to the kids, set aside the sketchbook that had been perched on her lap. Letting her eyes get crazy, she gave her very best Wicked Witch of the West cackle. "I'll get you, my pretty!" Lucas's eyes went wide, but Theo just grinned. "And your little friend, too!"

Just as she finished speaking, two sets of screeches came from the vehicle parked in the driveway. More specifically, from _underneath_ the car, where a set of larger and slightly smaller feet were poking out from underneath. Biofuel cars, as it turned out, were just as inclined to make strange noises as the old gas ones used to be.

Lucas's head whipped around, shocked, and Theo burst out laughing. Jennifer, older and ever-so-slightly more mature than her grandson, restrained herself to a grin. "Those are my flying monkeys."

"Hey, I'm still in training to be a witch!" Joy called out. "I'll get that cackle right, one of these days."

"Of course you will, baby," Jennifer called back, a familiar burst of affection filling her. She hadn’t done too well with the army of daughters Old Jennifer had wanted her to lead, but she thought she’d done a pretty good job taking care of this one particular daughter.

Then again, she hadn’t exactly done it alone.

Theo looked back at his grandmother, brow furrowed. “Why do you call Mom ‘baby’? She’s a grown-up.”

Deacon, pushing himself out from underneath the car, answered him. “Because she’ll always be our baby, no matter how old she gets.” He sat up, a streak of something dark on his shirt, his cheek, and in his now snow-white hair. “Just like you’ll always be your mom’s baby, no matter how old _you_ get.”

He would also be their baby, too – it seemed like just yesterday when Joy had handed him over to her for the first time – but Jennifer decided she’d better not mention that. Given the frown Theo was sporting already, he wouldn’t appreciate it. “Even when I get old and wrinkly like you guys?”

“ _Especially_ when you get old and wrinkly like us,” Jennifer said firmly, pulling him close enough for a great smacking kiss. He squirmed a little, just enough not to actually get away, and he was grinning by the time she let him go again.

As he ran off to play with Lucas, Joy slid out from underneath the car as well. She was dotted with similar streaks of something dark, and when she leaned in slightly to talk to her dad about something Jennifer hurriedly picked up her sketchbook. Flipping to a new page, she immediately started sketching out the scene. She only drew things that were In front of her now, moments she wanted to keep instead of images she was trying to understand.

All in all, she enjoyed drawing a hell of a lot more than she used to.

Eventually, Joy got to her feet and helped Deacon up as well. “We’re taking a break,” she announced to Jennifer, running a hand through her messy halo of dark hair. Halfway through, she pulled her hand away and made a horrified face at it. Clearly, some streaks of whatever it was in her hair as well. “Okay, that’s disgusting. Mom, I’m stealing one of your bandannas to tie over my hair.”

“Make sure it’s the blue one with the hamburgers on it,” Jennifer said, tilting her head to accept the kiss Joy gave her on the way by. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought it.”

Deacon watched them both with that soft, warm look that always made Jennifer melt a little. After Joy had gone inside, he sat down on the porch next to Jennifer. “She does know she’s just going to get disgusting again the moment we get back under the car, right?”

She made Scooby Doo’s “I don’t know” noise, then licked her thumb and started rubbing at the dark streak on his cheek. He sat there patiently and let her, and when she was done she let her thumb stroke gently down to his jaw. She liked just looking at him sometimes, even now.

Old Jennifer had never gotten to see this. She hadn’t had a Deacon to reach for, except maybe in her memory, and whatever time she’d had him hadn’t been nearly enough. Decades wouldn’t be enough.

Deacon smiled a little, expression soft. “Like what you see?” he murmured.

She smiled back at him, leaning in for a long, slow kiss. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my [original fiction,](https://jennifferwardell.wixsite.com/mybooks) my [blog,](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


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